Family Movie Night | Guest Post from Yes/No Films

Family movie night has become a weekend tradition at our house. For the price of a Netflix subscription and a bag of microwave popcorn, we have a night of bonding that everyone enjoys. This is also a great way for us to watch movies together, because taking a 2 year old and an infant to the movie theater is not my idea of a good time. My oldest loves movie night; I think his favorite part is getting to sit in his Elmo chair and eat “popcorns.”

I love movie night, but sometimes I am at a loss as far as what movies to pick. Obviously, I want something that is going to hold my son’s attention, but my husband and I would also like to watch a movie that won’t make us insane. The trick is finding a movie that all of us will enjoy.

To help with this challenge, I enlisted the help of my fellow Prime Parents’ Club contributor Liz Parker, who also writes for the Detroit Examiner, and maintains her own blog, Yes/No Films. This girl knows her movies. Liz was kind enough to put together her top 5 family movie night movies, to help give you (and me!) some ideas on great things to watch with your family. So now I will turn things over to Liz…

1) Despicable Me: One of the best animated movies in a while, in my opinion. The minions are cute and hilarious, and so are the little girls and even Gru (voiced by Steve Carell, with a thick Russian accent).

The book version of this was cute, and I was excited that it was made into a movie. The film moves slowly, but was still good (see my review). It was partially filmed in the Ann Arbor, MI area as well.

“Old school” (from the 1990s) – my favorite two are Lion King, which I just saw in theaters again, in 3D, and Aladdin. I also love Beauty and the Beast.

5) Hook (2001):

This is one of my favorite movies, and I owned a copy on VHS; I recently bought it on DVD. Dustin Hoffman is fabulous as the title character – its perhaps one of my favorite roles in any movie that he’s in – and so is Robin Williams as Peter Pan. It’s an interesting take on the Peter Pan story, and one that continues to be a great movie, even now 20 years after its release.

What do you think? What movies would you include on your top 5?

Please be sure to check out Liz’s movie reviews, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter. And if you’re not sure what to do this weekend, we recommend popping some popcorn and settling down with one of these great films!